GARCIN:
don't you boast you've caught me off my guard.
GARCIN:
But she never cried. Never uttered a word of reproach. Only her eyes
spoke.
INEZ:
Why did you hurt her like that?
GARCIN:
It was so easy. A word was enough
to make her flinch. Like a sensitive-plant. But never, never a reproach. I'm
fond of teasing. I watched and waited. But on, not a tear, not a protest. I'd
picked her up out of the gutter, you understand…Now she's stroking the coat.
Her eyes are shut and she's feeling with her fingers for the bullet-holes. What
are you after? What do you expect? I tell you I regret nothing. The truth is,
she admired me too much.
GARCIN:
I sleuthed myself like a detective.
GARCIN:
But they won't forget me, not they! They'll die, but others will
come after them to carry on the legend. I've left my fate in their hands.
ESTELLE:
You think too much, that's your trouble.
GARCIN:
Now listen! I want you to do me a service. No don't shrink away. I know it must
seem strange to you, having someone asking you for help; you're not use to that.
But if you'll make the effort, if you'll only will it hard enough, I dare say we
can really love each other. Look at it this way. A thousand of them are
procaliming I'm a coward; but what do numbers matter? If there's someone,
just one person, to say quite positively I did not run away, that I'm not the
sort who runs away, that I'm brave and decent and the rest of it—well, that on
person's faith would save me.
GARCIN:
There were days when you peered into yourself, into the secret places of
your heart and what you saw there made you faint with horror.